


Five Days of Elf

by olga_godim



Category: Elfhome Series - Wen Spencer
Genre: Elves, F/M, Gen, Urban Fantasy, Wen Spencer - Elfhome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-18 02:36:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21520489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olga_godim/pseuds/olga_godim
Summary: A story inspired by Wen Spencer's Elfhome universe. Lisa, a film school student from Vancouver, Canada, attends a local Shakespearean festival. When a gun-toting terrorist jumps on stage and starts shooting, she's sure she would die. Luckily, a young man in a gray turban saves everyone's lives by tackling the shooter. Would Lisa be able to thank the brave young man? Perhaps she could do a movie about him?The events in the story happen soon after "Tinker".
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	Five Days of Elf

Day One

Lisa turned on her phone as soon as the performance ended. She panned in a circle around the theatre, recording the applauding audience, the shining smiles, and an occasional snobbish grimace. Then she pivoted to concentrate on the stage and the bowing actors. The costumes for this Bard on the Beach production of _The Tempest_ were made by her instructor at the film school, and she wanted to get them all: Ariel, Miranda, Prospero, and the rest.  
When the actors filed out of the wings for their third curtain call, people began getting out of their seats. The evening was almost over, but she kept on filming, when a young man with long oily hair elbowed his way through the leaving crowd and climbed onto the stage. 

Prospero smiled at him, but the youth didn’t acknowledge the welcome. He whipped out an automatic weapon from beneath his windbreaker, pointed at the actors, and started shooting. The actors fell. They didn’t have time to escape. Blood pooled on the brightly lit stage. The rifle swung towards the audience, and the crowd of the happy Shakespeare lovers turned into a milling stampede.

Lisa froze. She couldn’t escape from her middle seat anyway. To her right and to her left, in front and behind, people shouted, pushed, and shoved. Some tried to jump over the seats or climb over the heads. Others disappeared under the rushing feet. Terrified screams from many throats rose to the tent’s roof and reverberated between the canvas walls, together with the gun’s bursts of rhythmic rapping. 

Lisa’s shaking hands still held her phone, and she kept on filming. The gunman’s face on the small screen of her phone looked distorted by hatred. He was screaming too, or at least his mouth was open, although she couldn’t hear anything beyond the roar of the crowd. 

The gun swerved right and left, until it pointed straight at her. She knew she was going to die but strangely, she wasn’t afraid. Maybe her fear glands hadn’t caught up with the horror happening in front of her. Public shooting could never happen in Vancouver. Would anyone find her phone after she died? What would happen to her film? 

Suddenly another person’s back leaped into the frame of her screen, between the gun and herself, a guy in a white shirt, jeans, and a gray Sikh turban, and tackled the gunman. They both tumbled to the stage, and the gun went quiet, although Lisa’s ears still rang from the pandemonium of the audience.  
On her phone screen, a knife flashed in the Indian guy’s tanned hand, descended, and vanished again. He stood up, his white shirt, already splashed with blood, reddening rapidly over one shoulder. One of the bullets probably hit him, but he didn’t seem to notice his wound. He kicked the limp body of the gunman, glanced at the fleeing audience, and his lips curled in distaste. Then he sprinted towards the back of the stage, where a large gap in the back canvas wall of the tent opened up to the night sky and the mountains invisible in the darkness—the majestic backdrop of the Vancouver scenery provided by nature. In another moment, he disappeared from view.

Lisa turned off her phone. By now, most of the audience cleared the front below the stage, but the terrified mobs still roiled near both exits. Several bodies sprawled in awkward poses on the seats and in the aisles, bleeding. A few people called 911, screaming for the police to hurry. A couple started back towards the blood-splattered stage. 

Lisa grabbed her bag, dropped the phone inside, and darted towards the stage too. She couldn’t help any of the wounded or dead but she wanted to talk to the rescuer in the turban. Maybe he needed help. Maybe she could give it. He had doubtlessly saved her life, together with many others tonight, and she wanted to look her savior in the eyes and say: thank you. Maybe even interview him for her film. Such an interview would be a hoot on youtube.

She inched around the stage, where a real tragedy had wiped off the joy of the Bard’s story; her eyes trained firmly on the natural backdrop of the night sky behind the stage, away from the bloody bodies. Her stomach churned. In the back, a short wooden staircase, faintly lit by the light from the stage, led into shadows. 

She hurried down the stairs. Where was he? A wire fence stretched in front of her, separating the Bard’s compound from the grassy shore and the waters of the False Creek. A lone figure in the white shirt and turban headed away from the fence, towards the access road. How had he gotten over the fence? It was at least as tall as she was. Had he jumped over it? He probably could—he had vaulted up to the stage, hadn’t taken the stairs. 

No, there was an opening in the fence, and a loose wire flap clicked softly in the breeze. Lisa squeezed through and ran after him. 

“Wait, please,” she called. 

Behind her, the police sirens exploded. 

He turned. The front of his shirt sported a large shiny stain, black in the darkness under the trees. “What do you want?” He spoke English with a faint accent.

“I wanted to thank you.” She stumbled to a halt in front of him. “You saved my life. And many others too.” Why did she try to reach him? Her thanks sounded inane even to her own ears. “You’re wounded,” she mumbled the obvious. “You need a doctor. Why did you run away from there?”

“I don’t need a doctor.” His white teeth flashed in a brief smile. “It’s not serious, only a graze. It’ll stop bleeding soon. And... I don’t wish to talk to the police.”

“Ah. I understand. Me neither. Do you have a car? Do you have far to go? Are you able to drive?”

He gazed at her, his dusky face wearing an arrested expression.

“I mean,” she floundered. To hell with it. She would just tell him the truth, not invent some noble reasons. “Uh, I want to help you, if you need my help, that is. Also, I was filming the whole thing. We can’t film the shows, it’s not allowed, but I filmed the bows and the costumes and I got the entire attack on film. I thought maybe I could, you know, film an interview with you. And then put it on youtube. It’s my school project, this film. Would you call me, maybe, when you feel better? I won’t disclose your name if you don’t want it. Here is my card. Please.”

He took the card without looking at it. He wouldn’t be able to read it in the dark anyway. Lisa started to turn, to leave him to his business, when he stopped her with a word.

“Wait.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t have a car. And I don’t really have a place to go.” He seemed embarrassed. “I arrived in Vancouver this afternoon. On a plane. I wanted to see this show. I thought I would get to a hotel afterwards, but now... I don’t think it is a good idea. They would see me in this bloody shirt and call the police right away. Would it be possible... if you have a place I could spend the night? One night only. I do need your help. What is your name?”

“Lisa. What is yours?”

“Petrel.”

“Like a bird?” She smiled. The tiny petrel so didn’t fit this tall and handsome fellow. “Yes, I have a car and I have a couch for you to crush on. And a shower. Come on, Petrel.”

“Thank you, Lisa.” He fell into step beside her. Was she crazy, she wondered, inviting a man she didn’t know into her home? Well, she did know something about him. He had risked his life to stop a terrorist. He was athletic, young, and gorgeous, from his chiseled profile to his long shapely legs. And he was a tourist.

“Where are you from?” she asked.

“New York.”

“Oh, an American. You’re probably used to terrorist attacks. You knew exactly what to do. In Canada, we don’t have such shootings. Everyone was scared shitless.”

“I noticed.”

Silence stretched for a while, before he said quietly. “I’m not an American.”

“From Europe? Or India?”

He grinned. “No. I’m an elf.”

Lisa stopped as if she walked into a wall. Turned. Stared. He stopped as well and stood still, enduring her perusal. An elf? Was the guy pulling her leg? By now, they left the Bard’s tents behind and hiked along the beach towards her car. The dim streetlights allowed her to see his huge exotic eyes, although she couldn’t see their color, and his immaculate turban. He didn’t look like any elves she had seen on TV. He looked like an actor or a model, beautiful and fit despite the bloody short.

There were only a couple dozen elves on Earth, the ones that had come on tourist visas from Elfhome a few months ago and got stuck when the Chinese gate in orbit crushed and their once-a-month way back to Elfhome was destroyed. She had seen the news. Some of them traveled, but most stayed together in New York, waiting for the reopening of the gateway, although nobody knew when and how it would happen. If ever. What were the odds that one of them would be standing beside her on a Vancouver backstreet, waiting to get into her car, into her home, onto her couch? 

Of all the questions swirling in her head, only one made its way out of her mouth. “Why are you wearing the turban, if you’re an elf? I thought you were Indian.”

“It’s a disguise,” he said quietly. “Everyone who sees it thinks I’m from India. Works like magic. I have a selection of hats to hide my ears, but the turban is the best.”

“O-o-okay.” Lisa started walking again, and he followed. “But why do you need a disguise?”

“I’m on a secret mission. The fewer people who know about it, the better my chances of keeping it from our ancient enemies.”

“Right,” Lisa said faintly. A secret mission? Ancient enemies? It sounded like a Hollywood track, or a Marvel comic, but so did the entire elven situation. Still, she wasn’t sure she believed him. She kept glancing at him during their short ride home. Had she invited a delusional guy into her apartment? How could she get rid of him now without being horribly rude? He didn’t initiate the conversation, just gazed with interest at the streets flowing past the car window.

As soon as they got inside the door, he asked to use the bathroom to clean up. She gave him a fresh towel and a tube of aloe vera gel for his wound, and then fiddled with her phone as she waited. Should she call the police after all? 

Only when he came out, she finally believed him. He hadn’t only washed up but also discarded his turban. His sharp elven ears stuck out above his gorgeous golden-blond hair, plaited into four long fat braids. Elaborate tattoos done in white ink covered his tanned arms, bulging with muscles. He had disposed of his bloody shirt, and the angry scrape on his shoulder looked painful, although it had already stopped bleeding. Despite his injury, he looked so yummy, Lisa wanted to inhale him. No, she wanted to lick him, all his beautiful, sculptured body, from the top of his cute ears to the tips of his large toes. He had removed his sneakers and socks too and stood barefoot in front of her like a living piece of art, so dazzlingly exquisite, she wanted to weep. She also wanted to film him. 

He didn’t seem to notice her fascination. “What do I do with the towel? It’s soiled with my blood. It should be destroyed. And the shirt too.”  
Destroyed? Only then Lisa remembered that by the human-elven treaty, no elven genetic material were allowed on Earth. The elves were immortal. What if Petrel’s blood could help her kid sister? 

“Of course. I’ll deal with it,” she said hurriedly, afraid he would guess her thoughts. If he did, he would probably leave her house, and she couldn’t allow that. No, she should keep him here for the night, feed him a dose of painkillers to knock him down, and take his blood for her sister, while he was unconscious. “I’ll burn this later.” She stuffed his bloody shirt and the towel into a plastic bag. She couldn’t look at him, but he didn’t pay attention. He was studying her bookshelf with its row of photographs. 

“Who is this girl? What’s wrong with her?”

“It’s my sister, Marina. She is ten. When she was six, she was diagnosed with cancer.” Lisa swallowed a lump in her throat. “She is dying.” Whatever it took, she would get his immortal blood for Marina. Lisa didn’t know if it would help or not but it couldn’t hurt. 

The worst that could happen after such a transfusion: Marina would die quickly, but she would die in a few months anyway. The poor girl was in constant pain. Every time Lisa visited, she wanted to howl at her own helplessness. Last time she had been there, Marina conducted an intense question-and-answer session about suicide. Despite her age, she knew that neither her mother nor her sister could help her die—they would go to prison. Assisted suicide was illegal in Canada.

“What is cancer?” Petrel’s tight words intruded on her contemplation.

“It’s a deadly disease. It kills.”

He looked at her, his stormy-gray eyes disturbed. “She is so small. I’ve never seen such a small child before I came to Earth.”

Lisa sighed. “I don’t have any clothing in your size. Tomorrow, I could go to a store and buy you something.”

He looked embarrassed. “I have clothes. I left my bag at the theatre, in the bag room. I still have a tag.” He produced a crumpled paper tag from his pocket.

“Oh, good. I’ll retrieve it tomorrow,” Lisa said. “Are you hungry?”

He eyed her with such hope in his huge eyes, she laughed. “I’ll make a frozen lasagna.”

“Wonderful. Thank you,” he said.

“You can watch TV while it cooks,” she suggested. She wanted him looking away from her kitchen.

He smiled brilliantly and promptly turned on the TV. 

Lisa took a frozen lasagna out of her freezer. She glanced back at him, but Petrel was fully engrossed in some game show. He bounced on her sofa and muttered something unintelligible. She opened her medicine cabinet and took out a bottle of morphine tablets. She had filled her sister’s prescription at the Cancer Center yesterday and was going to take it to her mother’s house tomorrow. As quietly as she could, she ground one tablet. Then she looked at her guest’s big and beautiful body, full of vitality, and ground the second one. He never glanced back at her. She released the breath she had been holding, sprinkled the white powder on the frozen lasagna, and stuck it into the oven. Hopefully, the morphine’s sleep-inducing power wouldn’t be diminished by the high temperature.

While the lasagna cooked, and Petrel was busy with the show, Lisa took stock of her supplies. She still had most of the medical paraphernalia from the times when Marina had stayed with her occasionally. It hadn’t happened in more than a year—the girl had been too sick to leave home—but her few remaining intravenous kits were still in their sterile packages. She would use one to draw the elf’s blood. She would take two bags, she decided. It was twice more than they took during the blood drives but it should be safe enough. He shouldn’t notice if he was asleep. 

When her doctored lasagna was ready, she served him, afraid to hope. 

“Will you join me?” he asked.

“No. I’m not hungry. Bon appetite.” She smiled with a false reassurance, but he didn’t notice.

He devoured the whole lasagna without reservation, joked and laughed with her, and then, between one moment and the next, dropped into a deep sleep. It took Lisa less than twenty minutes to fill two bags with his blood. He didn’t stir at the prick of the needle. She was as good at this medical stuff as any nurse, even though she had never studied nursing, just practiced on her little sister. Afterwards, she stored the blood in the fridge, cleaned up, and fell asleep herself.

Day Two

The next morning, Petrel was sluggish and didn’t want to get out of bed, which was understandable under the circumstances. “I don’t know why I feel so bad,” he complained during breakfast. “It is as if I was seriously wounded, but I was not. This wound is nothing.”

Lisa glanced at the healing scab on his shoulder and ladled a second portion of oatmeal, laced with honey and cranberries, into his bowl. “Don’t fret, Petrel. Eat. It might be a reaction to the change in climate,” she lied smoothly. She had heard that elves didn’t lie and could see when others were lying, but Petrel didn’t seem to perceive her duplicity. Anyway, it was for a good cause. Her sister might survive because Lisa was lying now to this particular elf. 

“Or it might be the change in the time zone,” she continued. “Many people feel it for a couple of days after a long flight.” She poured him a huge mug of green tea—he needed liquid after the bleeding last night—and stood up. “Rest today. I’ll retrieve your bag from the theatre. I also have to visit my sister today, they are expecting me. My mom has a dental appointment. I’ll be back later, but tomorrow, I might be able to help you with your mission.”

Suddenly he tensed. “You don’t know my mission,” he snapped.

She shrugged. “Doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. You’re cut off from Elfhome. You’re probably looking for a way home, right?”

He nodded, clearly unhappy with her deduction.

“I read somewhere,” Lisa said, “that in the past, elves traveled to Earth through caves in Europe and Asia. Then for some reason, those caves collapsed. But there are lots of caves in British Columbia, and I doubt elves ever visited the area. There was a virgin forest here until the middle of the 19th century and only a few native settlements. You want to find those caves, don’t you?”

He nodded again.

“Well, then. I have a spelunking friend. He can take you to the caves.”

“I can’t just trust anyone. Your friend might be one of our enemies.”

Lisa shook her head at his ridiculous suggestion. “I doubt it. Your enemies, if there are any here, are probably rich and powerful. My spelunking friend works at a community center for native youths. He is a Native American himself, a Salish. His parents are both school teachers in the interior BC. How probable is it they are your enemies?”

His immaculate eyebrows lifted. “Not very,” he admitted.

“Do you trust me?” Her question was so loaded with hypocrisy, she wanted to squirm but she didn’t. Her treacherous actions had one clear cause: Marina. 

“Yes,” he said. 

“Then you can trust my friends. Take it easy today, Petrel. Watch TV. Sleep. I have soup in the fridge; warm up some when you want. I’ll be back soon.” She grabbed her tote with Marina’s prescription drugs and her two precious blood bags and whisked out the door before he had time to object. 

Her next stop—Bard on the Beach—didn’t take long. 

“Nobody from that tent came for their bags yesterday,” the girl in the bag room said, handing Lisa Petrel’s duffel bag.

“Do you know if... the actors survived?”

The bag girl looked down. “Two were dead, when the paramedics arrived, and one from the public. The rest or the wounded are still at the hospital. If not for that Indian guy... Did you see him?”

“I’m sorry,” Lisa managed. “It was horrible. No, I didn’t see him. I was too busy screaming.”

“Yes,” the girl said. “Most people were.”

Lisa tossed the duffel on the back seat and climbed into the car for the long drive to her mom’s place. She had lied to Petrel earlier today. She had lied to the bag girl at the Bard. She would lie again to her mother and her sister. That was a lot of lies in one day for someone basically honest, like herself.

Marina met her with a squeal of happiness. The girl seemed almost insubstantial by now, tiny in her large bed, her skin the same translucent color as the sheets, her hairless scalp—the result of the latest and utterly useless course of chemo—making her look like a child manikin in a store. She had lost weight again. Only skin and bones remained, and pain, hidden deep in Marina’s eyes. The girl didn’t complain anymore, didn’t even cry. Whatever lies Lisa had to tell, however many people she had to deceive, anything was worth even a smudge of hope for Marina. 

With long practice, Lisa concealed her dismay at the sight of her sister, kissed the small sunken cheek, and turned to her mother.

“We’ll be fine, mom. Go see your dentist.”

“Just checkup and cleaning. I won’t be long. You know where everything is, the medicines...”

“I know, mom.” Lisa followed her mother to the front door. “Don’t worry. Go do something fun after the dentist. Go shopping for an hour or whatever. Sit in a coffee shop. You need a break.”

“I don’t want a break,” her mother said bleakly. “I want her...”

“I know. Just go. You look tired.”

“Maybe,” her mother said with a sigh and closed the door gently behind herself. 

Lisa returned to Marina’s room. They played board games for a while and watched TV, but after Marina’s next dose of painkiller, as soon as Marina fell asleep, Lisa sprang into action. She couldn’t risk her mother returning before she was done. 

A needle was still in her sister’s thin hand, secured by a medical tape. It had become a permanent feature lately, and Lisa always hated it. She was glad for it now. The IV stand was in the closet, as always. It took no time for Lisa to connect all the tubes and start the drip. Petrel’s blood trickled slowly into Marina, while the girl slept and Lisa watched.

She didn’t pray—her family had never been into religion—so she just sat quietly beside her sister, watched the blood level slowly drop in the bag, and wished with all her heart that it would help. 

Visiting Marina always drained her. By the time her mother came back, all the traces of the blood transfusion were gone, but Lisa was fighting tears. She couldn’t wait to go home, to her small and disordered apartment and her gorgeous elven guest. She stopped at the supermarket for groceries and opened the door of her apartment with breathless anticipation.

“Hey. I’m home.”

A knife to her neck met her just inside the door. “What have you done to me?” Petrel hissed into her ear. He dragged her into the apartment and slammed the door with his foot. His fingers bit into the back of her neck. “Did you poison me? Who paid you?”

Lisa dropped her grocery bags and his duffel to the floor. She was afraid to breathe. 

“Nobody paid me,” she whispered. “I didn’t do anything bad, no permanent damage.”

“What did you do?” His voice was infused with a deadly promise.

“I took your blood,” Lisa said. 

“For what?”

“For my sister. She is dying. You’re immortal.” She swallowed convulsively and felt the knife move against her throat, but there was no pain. He hadn’t cut her yet, or she didn’t feel it. “I thought your immortal blood might destroy her cancer, cure her. I made a blood transfusion.”

He stood still for a moment longer and then he stepped back, releasing her. The knife mysteriously disappeared, and his eyes didn’t drill into her anymore. He was looking instead at Marina’s photographs on the bookshelf. 

Lisa sagged against the wall. How had he guessed? It wasn’t important anymore. She inhaled several times, trying to slow down her galloping heart, and kicked his duffel towards him. “I brought your things,” she said. Then she picked up her groceries and stomped past him into the kitchen. Her hands shook. 

All the counters were littered with dirty dishes, cups, and cutlery, and the empty soup pot. The remainder of the bread was gone too—a good thing she had bought a fresh loaf. 

“You ate my food like a pig and then you put a knife to my throat,” she snarled as she started to clean. “How positively... elvish. You might’ve at least cleaned up after yourself.”

He whirled to face her. “Did it work?”

“What?”

“My blood.”

Lisa stopped her frantic dishwashing. The familiar helplessness welled up, as it always did whenever she talked about Marina. Her hands hung at her sides. “I don’t know. She was asleep when I left. It might yet. It might take a few days. Or it might kill her. I don’t know. It was a risk but... it might be her only hope.” She blinked furiously to get rid of her tears. 

Petrel stood in front of her, large, impossibly beautiful, and infinitely dangerous; his eyes unreadable. He stared at her for a moment longer before his gaze traveled to the mess on the kitchen counters.

“I don’t know how,” he said.

“Huh?”

“I never clean up after I eat.”

Lisa burst into a nervous laughter. “Who does, your servants? You’re rich, aren’t you?”

“No. I’m a sekasha,” he said. 

“What is that?” Lisa turned her back on him and resumed her cleaning. She needed clean counters to cook. Besides, cleaning always calmed her. 

“We don’t do kitchen. The sefada caste does it. We fight.”

She tossed a glance at him over her shoulder. “You fight all day long? You’re soldiers?”

He considered her question. “Yes. We practice.”

She shook her head and didn’t reply. From what she had read about their culture, some aspects of it were incomprehensible. Some things about the human culture might be equally baffling to him, and he was tossed into it like a babe in the water, to sink or swim. He probably should be pitied, but she couldn’t bring herself to pity him. She still felt the icy line of the blade at her throat, although her mirror didn’t show even a tiny scratch.  
By the time her chicken stew was ready, her jitters subsided, and the kitchen was clean again. She filled his bowl and hers with the stew and carried both to the table. 

“Thank you.” Petrel dived into his stew and moaned in ecstasy. “It’s divine, as good as peanut butter.”

Lisa chuckled. She had heard about the elves’ penchant for peanut butter. “I bought you a jar of peanut butter for breakfast,” she said. “I don’t like it myself, so I don’t usually have it.” 

While they ate, she turned on the TV to a local news channel. The anchor droned about the plans of a new airport expansion, the bus system upgrades, and the new condominiums in Downtown, before the Bard on the Beach unmistakable white and red tents filled the screen. 

“The police is still searching for an elven tourist who stopped the terrorist shooting yesterday at the performance of _The Tempest_. Our guest from New York saved countless lives last night, and the police has questions for him. We all do. We want to thank the hero from the bottoms of our Canadian hearts. At the last night show, he wore a gray turban. Anyone who has information about him, please call one of the following numbers.” 

The numbers ran on a ribbon in the bottom of the screen, while both Lisa and Petrel stared at it. 

“Did you tell anyone about me?” Petrel asked quietly. “Your mother?”

“No. I didn’t tell anyone. Maybe those enemies of yours tracked you down from New York? They obviously didn’t track you to my place.” Lisa grinned. “They don’t know where you’re now, or they would be knocking on my door.” Her grin slipped. “They know about your turban, Petrel. If you don’t want them to find you, you need another disguise.”

He gazed at her in obvious gloom. 

“Who are they, Petrel?”

“Oni,” he said. 

Lisa frowned. “Oni? That’s real clear.”

“There is a third parallel world to Earth and Elfhome—Onihida. The oni are evil, ruthless. They want to invade Elfhome. That’s why most gateways in the caves were destroyed. The elves destroyed them to prevent the oni from overrunning Elfhome.”

“There are those... oni on Earth?”

“Yes.”

The anchor on TV switched to the latest house fire, and Lisa turned it off. She collected the empty bowls and carried them to the sink, while Petrel sat dejectedly on the sofa and eyed the dead TV screen. 

“Why don’t they invade Earth, Petrel?”

“No space. I guess there are even more humans here than oni there. I don’t really know. Maybe because humans are on the way to destroy the Earth ecology, and Elfhome is still pristine.”

She winced. “Maybe. But everyone knows there are caves in British Columbia. They are in the tourist guides. Why didn’t those oni come here before you? Why did they follow you?”

“I’m from the Water Clan. My people are sailors. Years ago, a couple centuries, my grandfather sailed to the west coast of this continent and found a gateway in a cave. I know the location, but we kept it a secret. It is not in any tourist guide; I checked before I came here. There was no danger of anyone discovering it by accident from Elfhome. You said so before, there was a virgin forest here, still is on Elfhome, but now all the known gates have been destroyed. I thought I could find this one.”

“And go home?”

He nodded unhappily. “But I can’t lead the oni there. I won’t. I’d rather die.”

“With the right disguise, nobody should recognize you.”

“I don’t have a disguise anymore. If they’re aware of my turban, they would know me in any hat.”

“You need a wig.” 

Interest stirred in his slanted eyes. “Could I buy one?”

“Probably not a good idea. There are very few wig shops in Vancouver, and if those oni followed you from New York, they might watch the wig shops too. But I can get you a wig. I work part-time for a movie production company, in the costume department, to pay for my schooling. Tomorrow, we’ll drive there, and I’ll get you an excellent wig.”

“Thank you.” He smiled, his huge eyes regarding her with unsettling intensity. “You’re beautiful. Do you find me appealing?” He gazed at her breasts as if they were two big plump mice, and he a hunting cat. 

Men had been gazing at her breasts since she turned thirteen. She was used to deflecting their lust with jokes but she didn’t feel like joking right now. She did find him appealing, and he probably sensed it, but she couldn’t, not now. 

“I don’t believe it. The bounder is flirting with me,” she sputtered. Her cheeks felt hot. “You have the nerve, mister. An hour ago, you put a knife to my neck, and now you—”

“Now,” he interrupted, “I want to lick your neck. And kiss it. And bite it. And the rest of you.”

I didn’t harm you with my knife, did I? You didn’t harm me.” His gaze flicked to Marina’s photos momentarily before returning to Lisa’s face. “I heard human women are delightful. I want to try.”

“Forget it.” She surged to her feet. “Go to bed. I don’t have sex with guys who try to kill me first. Not the same day, anyway,” she added under her breath.

Unfortunately, he heard her. “Maybe tomorrow?”

She huffed. “Tomorrow, we’ll get you a wig. And then I’ll call James, the spelunking friends, so he could take you to your cave. Caveman!”

Petrel laughed. He obviously didn’t suffer from her rejection. He fell asleep on his sofa soon after, but Lisa stayed awake for a long time. Too many emotional waves in the past two days, she thought sourly, turning in her bed for the hundredth time. She wouldn’t even have the distraction of work in the next couple weeks. Her school was off till September, and her next contract with the movie company started the second week of August. She had been looking forward to her unexpected vacation in the middle of summer, maybe spending a few days with Marina, but now, she was stuck with her guest, the big-eared, cute ass of an elf, for the next fortnight. Such calamities were not supposed to happen in Canada. 

Day Three

She got him a huge wig of dark curly hair. It was big enough to accommodate his ears and his hair, and the studio had used it last a few years ago, for a second-rate sci-fi series. She hadn’t heard of plans to reuse it for anything else so she filched it from storage without her conscience twinging. She drove away from the warehouse before anyone noticed her.

Happy like a baby, Petrel put his new headgear on and admired himself in the car’s rear-view mirror. Wearing his turban, he had looked like an Indian rajah. Wearing the wig, he looked like a ’70s rapper with a mad afro. 

“Do you have a bigger mirror?” he demanded. “I want to see how it looks from the back.”

Lisa shook her head. She couldn’t resist a smile. When they stopped for coffee a few minutes later, she called James about her guest who wanted to go spelunking. She didn’t mention Petrel’s elven persuasion, but James couldn’t get away today. They made plans for tomorrow. Then she called her mother. Marina was slightly feverish but not in pain. She didn’t even need her regular dose of pain medication.

“I’m not sure that’s a good sign,” her mother said quietly. “She is asleep now. Will you come visit again soon? She loves it when you come.”

“Yes, mom. In a couple days,” Lisa promised.

“Not better?” Petrel sipped his tea, his eyes inscrutable. 

“No. Maybe tomorrow.”

“What are we going to do now? You could drive me to the cave without your friend. I know where it is.” According to Petrel’s grandfather, the cave with the gate to Elfhome was somewhere in the crags along the Sea-to-Sky highway, near Shannon Falls. 

“I suppose we could drive there and take a look.” Lisa started the car. “It’s not too far, although I’ve never heard about any caves there. There is an old mine there and a museum. But even if there is a cave, you’re not going inside without James and his safety gear. I don’t want to be responsible for your death.”

Unperturbed, Petrel grinned. During the ride, he entertained her with outrageous tales about his sailing grandfather and cousins but very little about himself. He seemed in high spirit all the way to Britannia Beach, where he suddenly tensed. 

“Should I drive farther?” Lisa slowed down at the entrance to a small parking lot across the road from one of the scenic lookouts. Only one car, a gray sedan, was parked there.

“Don’t stop,” he said. “Drive! They knew I would be here.”

Lisa accelerated and glanced in the side mirror. The men around the sedan were not admiring the scenery. All three were watching her car, until a bend in the road hid them from view. 

“They are your enemies?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?” She gripped the wheel tighter, her stomach churning. She couldn’t really believe those people would kill, but Petrel’s agitation was contagious. Had she stumbled on a real-life thriller with the real-life villains, when she invited a pretty elf to her place? She shivered. “They don’t look any different from other people.”

“I recognize one of them. He was on the plane from New York with me.”

“Ouch,” Lisa said. “So that would be the stop you wanted?”

“Yes. But they are watching it. They don’t know how to find the cave but they know the approximate location. I can’t go there now.”

“How do they know?” Lisa persisted.

“Maybe they had a spy in my grandfather’s household,” Petrel said. “They had centuries to make plans.”

“Fine. So we drive to Whistler, like normal tourists, and spend a few hours there. I have to think.”

“I should go back to New York,” Petrel said gloomily. He only revived in the Sea-to-Sky Gondola, his eyes glued to the glass, as he drank in the amazing sights. The gondola swayed on its cable, so high above the ground, Lisa felt dizzy.

“I wish I could ride outside, on the roof of this thing,” Petrel said with genuine regret. “I want to feel the wind on my face, not this stuffy glass box.”

“You’re crazy,” Lisa said. She stayed in the exact center of the gondola, as far from any of its windows as she could, and tried to pretend she was on a tourist bus. It didn’t work. No bus had hundreds of meters of empty air under its wheels. Never again, she promised herself silently. 

By the time they returned home in the evening, Petrel slid back into his melancholy, but Lisa had a plan. “We’re going to make a movie,” she announced. “I’ll call a few people, and we are going to make that lookout parking lot our base for the technical vans. If those guys are still there tomorrow, I’m going to interview them on camera, for my youtube movie. I’m guessing, they wouldn’t want that.”

“What are you talking about?” Petrel ate his dinner slowly and methodically. Unlike the previous evening, he didn’t seem to be tasting his food. 

“I need a movie as my school project. I was filming that show where I met you, but this is better. I’m going to make James my hero. I want him to tell me about the caves in BC and the native legends that surround them. He once said that every cave has a legend attached. That will be a great theme for a documentary. He might even know about your cave. And a legend for it.”

“You can’t tell your friends about me,” Petrel said flatly, his eyes hard. He even stopped shoveling the stew into his mouth to deliver his ultimatum.

“I have to tell James, but nobody else. James needs to know if he is to help you. You can trust him.” 

He eyed her for a few moments before resuming his glum dinner. “Fine,” he growled. 

Day Four

They drove to the lookout in James’s van, stuffed with his climbing equipment. James had taken Petrel’s story in stride. A tall man, almost as tall as the elf, James was much bulkier but a lot less intimidating. He had cheerfully agreed to Lisa’s suggestion to be the narrator of her movie. His narrow black eyes twinkled with amusement. 

“I know so many Native legends about the local caves, I would need a couple hours just to tell them all, not the twenty minutes of your student film. I suppose you’ll need some scenery too.”

Lisa nodded happily. Her film was shaping up much better and more original than the one about the Bard costumes would’ve been. James would be great on camera.

Petrel didn’t like her attention on James, so he sulked, but James dealt with the sulking elf the same way he dealt with the teenage boys in his community center—he laughed at him with his eyes and treated him with exaggerated politeness. Lisa had witnesses his tactics before, when she taught art to James’s charges, and she loved his approach. Petrel obviously didn’t like anyone but him doing the laughing. He couldn’t object to the polite words, of course, so he glowered instead.

“I know about this cave you want.” James steered his heavy van with practice ease. “It is not in any tourist guides, and I’ve never taken anyone there, but our legends say that it leads into a forbidden place, a place of Dark Raven. In the 19th century, several of our best hunters tried to explore the cave. None came back. I went in once, a few years ago, but I didn’t go far. It felt wrong. I trust my intuition.”

“There should be...” Petrel hesitated, as if searching for a right word, “a warning, a magical repulsion spell, set by my grandfather at a spot where the cave crosses into Elfhome. It might feel to you as ‘wrong.’” 

“What would happen if someone disregards that warning and keeps going?” Lisa asked. 

“They would get to Elfhome, into a forest. I think.”

“Why wouldn’t they come back then? James said nobody came back.”

“Maybe they got eaten. Our forests are much more dangerous than yours. They are full of nasty creatures. Imagine your wild beasts, like wolves or boars, but enhanced with magic. Smarter, meaner, stronger, and much bigger. With sharper teeth.”

“Gross,” Lisa said.

James’s eyes stopped laughing. “So what are you going to do, Petrel, if you find this gate? You said the only elven settlements on this continent on Elfhome are on the east coast. Are you going to hike alone across North America, through miles of forest populated with magic-enhanced monsters?” 

Petrel stared wordlessly at James, then at Lisa. His lips opened, but no words emerged. He closed his mouth with a snap.

“Could you survive such a trek?” Lisa asked. “I know you can fight, but it is a long way. It might take you months on foot.”

“No,” Petrel said softly. “I can’t survive alone. I didn’t think about it.”

“So what are you going to do? Maybe your grandfather would sail again to this coast?”

“I don’t think so.” Petrel retreated into silence.

“We’ll investigate anyway,” James said after a while. “Today, after the movie shoot, we’ll get into the cave and see what we can find. Then we’ll come back and plan.”

“What is there to plan?” Petrel said bitterly. “I was a fool to come here.”

“What you need is transportation,” James said. “I’d say: some flying machine, a plane or a chopper, but portable, one you could bring in spare parts and assemble in the cave. That would seriously cut your travel time. I have a couple buddies—they own an aviation club out in Abbotsford. They might help, or some of their club members. Some of those guys can build anything from a couple of screws and a piece of tarp. Real MacGyvers.” 

“Maybe,” Petrel said after a long silence. “What is a macgyver? I don’t know the word?”

Lisa laughed, and James chuckled. “It’s a name,” Lisa said. “And a TV series. MacGyver could build anything from scotch tape and nails. Totally unreal but fun. I’ll find it for you online.”

When they arrived, Corey with his van and Dylan with his motorcycle were already at the lookout parking. So was the gray sedan with its three morose passengers. Dylan was wearing his police uniform, and the men from the sedan eyed him uneasily, although he wasn’t doing anything. He just stood there in a military pose, the multiple gadgets on his belt looking almost authentic. Corey was blithely unloading his lighting equipment and didn’t pay much attention to Dylan or to the strangers in the sedan.

“I love you, Dylan,” Lisa murmured. “Petrel, stay in the van until those people leave. Afterwards, you’ll come out, and I’ll introduce you to my friends. We’ll shoot the movie, and then you and James will go to the cave.”

“Your friend is a policeman,” Petrel said flatly.

“No. They are both students at the film school with me. Corey is aiming for a cameraman job. Dylan is an actor. He already plays extras in a couple TV series; in both, he is a walk-on policeman. That’s his costume, and he knows how to do police talk too. He’s even had a few words on camera once in a while. He is intimidating, isn’t he? I asked him to come in costume and scare off any bystanders. He is doing a fine job, I think.” 

She jumped out of the van and headed towards Corey. Dylan ambled over too. 

“So we’re shooting for real?” Corey said.

“What do I do with those folks?” Dylan asked, jerking his blond head towards the sedan.

“I’ll talk to them first. I might interview them too, but after that, we’ll ask them to leave. If they resist, you’ll tell them that we have a permit for this area until nightfall.”

“What if a real policeman comes along?” 

“Then we’re shooting a student movie, and you’re in costume.” She glanced back at James climbing out of his van. “And James is a criminal. We’ll stage some confrontation, maybe ask the policeman to play a role too. I don’t think they’re allowed on camera. Don’t worry, you won’t get in trouble. I’m the director.”

“Yah, yah, the hottest chick at school, and she is the director. You should be a star.” He leered at her breasts. 

“If you don’t want to ruin your pretty face, you brainless hunk, you will keep your opinion to yourself. Or I’ll punch you in the nose.”

Dylan laughed. “All words, no play, girly.” 

Lisa made a fist and struck it under Dylan’s nose. She couldn’t reach higher without standing on tiptoe. Dylan, who was a couple feet taller than her and studied martial arts, easily dodged her fake blow. They often bantered like that at school, and all her classmates were used to it. 

Her conversation with Petrel’s enemies wasn’t nearly as much fun but just as quick. Only one of them, a handsome man wearing impeccably-ironed khaki pants and a crisp white shirt, talked to her. The other two, also dressed to the nines, stayed quiet. All three contrasted sharply with Corey, James, and herself, all wearing wrinkled jeans and T-shirts. 

“You’re shooting a student movie? And you want to interview us on camera? For youtube? No!” The spokesman sounded as if she suggested something obscene.

“Then you’ll have to leave, sir.” Lisa tried to inject heartfelt regret into her tone. It wasn’t easy. She wasn’t a good actress and didn’t aspire to be. Fortunately, she could lie with the best of them. “We have a permit to use this parking lot and the surrounding area until nightfall. We have more people coming soon.” 

Dylan hovered behind her shoulder, looking as swaggering as a real policeman and ready to say his part, but it wasn’t necessary.

The stuffed shirt winced and retreated to his car. “All right. Good luck with your movie.” All three piled in and drove away. 

When their car, heading towards Vancouver, vanished behind the bend, Petrel got out of the van. Despite his crazy afro wig and his jeans and T-shirt, he looked as elegant as the people from the sedan. The rest of the film crew seemed shabby in comparison. 

Lisa made the introductions. Her friend from New York, a junior accountant—she invented as boring a profession as she could think of, to prevent intense questioning from her film friends—wanted to see how they made student movies in Canada. Petrel played his role like a trained actor. He even offered to help Corey with his equipment and stayed close to James’s van all the time they worked on the movie. 

“Great guy,” Dylan said respectfully, after Petrel demonstrated for him some martial art moves. 

“What is such an eye-candy doing as an accountant?” Corey mused as he stowed away his lights and his cables. “He should be starring in movies. Camera would love him.

Lisa agreed but mumbled something unintelligible and waved Dylan and Corey on their way. 

“I’ll wait for you here, in the van,” she informed Petrel and James, as they kitted up for their cave excursion: backpacks, ropes, torches, and other spelunking paraphernalia.

“You’re not coming with us?” Petrel sounded disappointed.

“Nope. I don’t like caves.”

They left, and she settled into the back of the van with her laptop and the film Corey had shot so far. She was so absorbed in her editing that she only lifted her head when it became too dark in the van. How long had the boys been gone? She checked the laptop clock. Over four hours. Should she start worrying? How long did it take to get to Elfhome and back? Had anything happened to them? Maybe those monsters Petrel mentioned? 

To get her mind off the possible disaster scenarios, she called her mother. “How is Marina?”

“The same. Lisa, I don’t know what it means, but her pain seems to be gone. She is still feverish, but it is down too. She is weak and sleeps a lot; that’s about it. I’m afraid, Lisa. I’m afraid it’s the end.” She sobbed quietly. “In the past two days, she hasn’t needed her pain medications once. I can’t even take her to the hospital. Nothing to complain about.”

“Mom, don’t take her to the hospital,” Lisa said hurriedly. “You know she hates it. Maybe she is in remission again. Maybe she’ll get better.” Maybe Petrel’s blood was working. 

Lisa told her mother about the movie, about waiting for James and Petrel in the van, and ended the call. Then she hoped out of the van. She needed to stretch her legs. She also needed to relieve herself, and she would have to hike into the trees to find a secluded spot. This lonely lookout didn’t boast a washroom.

This stretch of the road wasn’t running flash to the steep cliff side, as most of the Sea-to-Sky highway did. Here, the mountains stepped away from the road, and the trees grew dense over the gradual incline. She started climbing, using a small torch from the van not to trip over the roots in the murky twilight. A few minutes later, she found what she was looking for—a clump of shrubbery which completely concealed her from the road and the parking lot. Not that anyone was going to stop at the lookout with the true night falling. 

She finished her business quickly, when she heard a car pulling into the lot. The headlights seemed too bright for the tiny space. The car engine stuttered to a halt. Why would anyone come here so late? They wouldn’t be able to see much in the darkness, even with their headlights on, but they would see her coming out of the trees and guess what she was up to. Drat it!

Lisa straightened—no help for it; she couldn’t hide forever—and her head cleared the top of the shrubbery. From her dark hiding space between the trunks, the parking lot unfolded like a movie screen. Behind James’s van, the gray sedan that had been here before opened its doors, disgorging the same three passengers. The sedan’s lights winked out. The men marched to the van with their own torchlights on, their guns drawn and ready. They yanked the van’s door open—she had stupidly left it unlocked—and rushed inside. 

Lisa swallowed her terror, her legs rubbery, her hands shaking. She didn’t turn her little torch on again. Careful not to make too much noise, she dropped the light in her pocket, stepped back out of her makeshift washroom, and slid behind the nearest tree trunk. Her heart hammered in her chest. Petrel’s well-dressed adversaries came back, and she was alone in the empty parking lot, in the middle of nowhere, with three goons with guns. 

At least they didn’t know she was here, but guns? Before this week, she had never seen people with guns in real life, only on screen. Canadians didn’t carry guns, but she had encountered entirely too many guns in the last few days. Maybe that terrorist at the Bard show wasn’t a coincidence. Maybe those three thugs had hired him to flush out Petrel. 

Petrel! And James! She peeked out from behind her protective trunk, but the parking lot was quiet. The van didn’t move and didn’t light up. It stayed the same as when she had left it. The only change was the gray sedan behind the van, hardly visible in the night. The three killers were going to ambush her friends.

Not if she could help it! She fished out her phone out of her pocket and dialed James’s number. No answer. Of course, if he was still inside the cave, there would be no signal there. She left a message anyway: “Sedan returned. Ambush inside van.” Then she turned the phone to vibrate, so as not to alert the ambushers, if it rang. What else could she do? 

Should she call the police? Her finger poised to dial 911, but she hesitated. Did the local police even carry guns? She didn’t know, but Dylan’s police costume didn’t include a gun, just a fake baton and a fake Taser. If the policemen came, they would be unprepared for the three man with live guns. And there would be only two policemen against the three jerks in the van. No, she couldn’t initiate a slaughter. The phone, un-dialed, landed in her pocket. 

She would’ve tried to warn James and Petrel, had she had the least idea of the whereabouts of the cave. Unfortunately, she didn’t. James had said it was hard to find. Anyway, in the darkness, she couldn’t see five steps in front of her, let alone find an unknown cave. 

It started drizzling—the usual Vancouver drizzle—and the clouds obscured half the stars in the sky. The pale, half-disc of the moon rode behind the mist. Maybe she should check the gun-toting morons’ car. Maybe there was something there she could use against them. If they didn’t leave anyone inside. 

Under the cover of trees, Lisa inched slowly around the parking lot. When she was as close to the sedan as she could get, just behind the van, she bent low, the way she had seen in the movies, and crept towards the car. The door of the passenger seat loomed in front of her. Cautiously, she peeked in—nobody there. She pulled gently, and it opened. The fools hadn’t locked their car, and the key was still in the ignition. Just like herself. She scrambled in, anxiously watching the van, ready to bolt into the wooded darkness again, but nothing moved. The intruders obviously didn’t consider their own car a threat.

They would be sorry, Lisa thought viciously. A car was a powerful tool in the right hands. She scrabbled into the driver’s seat and hunched low, contemplating the opposite side of the parking lot. That was where James had led Petrel, before they started climbing up the tree-covered hillside. There was a narrow trail there. She hoped they would come back the same way. 

Half an hour later, they did. Their torches’ pinpricks of lights flickered on and off in the darkness, as the men holding them weaved their way between the trees. They walked openly, no stealth, presenting two clear targets. Hadn’t James checked his messages? Probably not. The killers in the van would notice them too and be ready with their guns. The dual torchlights moved down rapidly. Another moment, and they would step out of the cover of trees into the parking lot. Now!

Lisa turned the key in the ignition and flipped on all the sedan lights. The headlights blazed. Then she pounded the horn with her fist, and the parking lot exploded with loud alarms. Pay attention, men, she begged her friends silently as she pressed the gas pedal. 

They did. The torchlights vanished. She backed away from the van to give herself room to maneuver, when the van’s door opened. She hit the horn again, switched to the forward gear, and pointed the car at the first man who emerged from the van at a run. The distance to him was only a few meters. She plowed into him before he raised his gun. The car swerved, and the man flew sideways, landing on the asphalt with a thud. Lisa stopped the car, but not before she saw Petrel sprinting towards his enemies. James dashed after him. Neither had a gun, but both had knives in their hands. James always had a knife on his spelunking expeditions, and Petrel probably slept with his knife. She turned off the engine and dived into the back seat, where she slithered down to crouch on the floor. She had done all she could. Now it was up to the men. 

Gun shots, thumps, and yells swirled around the sedan. One of the bullets hit the front window, and it burst into a shower of glass shards. The seat backs protected her somewhat, but one of the shards slashed her hand. She felt the sharp, hot sting and the welling of blood, even though she couldn’t see anything. Win, win, win, she chanted silently, directing all her energy towards her friends. You have to win. 

An eternity later—probably a few minutes—she heard Petrel’s voice. “Lisa? It’s over. Where are you?”

Have they won? She straightened slowly and climbed out of the car. The van’s inside light and headlights sprang to life. In the glow, the parking lot looked almost the same as in the daylight, except for the three motionless bodies, lying in awkward poses amid dark glistening puddles. James hopped out of the van. Both he and Petrel looked battered and bruised, but at least they were walking, unlike the others.

“Are they alive?” she ventured faintly, nodding at the prone bodies. 

“No,” James said harshly. “He killed all of them, cut their throats.”

“I had no choice,” Petrel said. He was already at Lisa’s side, his eyes on her injured hand. “You’re bleeding.” 

“He saved my life,” James muttered. He didn’t look at Lisa. “But now, we’re guilty of a triple homicide.”

“Petrel does that, saves lives,” Lisa mumbled. She felt dizzy, swayed, and would’ve fallen, if Petrel didn’t catch her. 

He carried her to the van. “James,” he called. “I need to bind her wound. Do you have a bandage?”

For the next several minutes, both men fussed around her, while she closed her eyes against the vertigo and let them do what they wanted. By the time her head stopped spinning, her hand was bandaged. It ached, but she could function again.

Reclining on the back seat of the van, she eyed her friends. “How are you both?”

“Fine,” Petrel said. “You have the worst injury.”

“Better than those kooks,” James said glumly. He had a black eye and a scrape along his jaw but he didn’t seem in too much pain. “We should call the police.”

“Did you see any cars passing during the fight?” Lisa asked. “I was down in the sedan but I didn’t hear anything.” 

“No,” James said. “I didn’t hear either. It’s only been a few minutes.”

“So nobody heard the shots,” Lisa pressed softly. “Maybe, if we hide the bodies and the car, nobody would learn what happened here. At least not right away. It’s raining. By morning, it would wash away most of the blood.”

“Where would we hide the bodies?” James swore. “I don’t want to go to prison.”

Petrel, who stayed silent until now, stirred. “We could take them back to Elfhome through the cave. Something would eat them,” he offered. 

Lisa and James gaped at him.

“You found the gateway? Why did it take so long?” Lisa demanded.

“The cave is expansive.” James’s eyes brightened. “We took several wrong turns before we found the right passage. It wouldn’t take us as long now. Yes, it might work. Some monsters in those woods would have a nice dinner. But we have to do it now.”

“Yes,” Petrel agreed. “Now.”

He lashed together two of the bodies, James hoisted the third one on his shoulder, and they lumbered towards the cave again, carrying their gruesome burdens. Lisa went to clean up the sedan of any identifying papers and of her fingerprints. She felt sick again but for a different reason. James had a morbid sense of humor. Or maybe it wasn’t humor, just fatigue, but the image of Elfhome monsters dining on human corpses span in her head. It would probably haunt her for a long time. 

Day Five

They finally drove to Lisa’s home around four in the morning, after leaving the sedan in the backyard of an abandoned, half-ruined building in East Vancouver. Too weary, they dropped to sleep as they were, without even undressing, dirty socks and all. None of them had even had enough strength to take a shower. Lisa and Petrel slept in her bed. James stretched on the couch. 

When Lisa woke up, it was noon. The men still slept but they stirred by the time she came out of the shower. James left immediately after breakfast; he had to go to work. Petrel washed the dishes, probably for the first time in his life, but he wouldn’t allow Lisa to do it on account of her injured hand.

“It’s not too bad, Petrel,” Lisa objected. The fresh bandage she put on after the shower was dry. “I could wear plastic gloves.”

He smiled sweetly and applied himself to the dishes. “We don’t have hot running water at home. This is fun,” he murmured. 

“So what are you going to do?” Lisa asked from her place of leisure on the sofa. “You said there is a dense forest all around the cave entrance on Elfhome.”

“James is going to ask his friends, and then I’m going to help them build me a plane. I’m going to fly a plane.” His smile grew wider. He finished the dishes and came towards her, dropping on his knees in front of the sofa. He eyed her breasts, covered by an old T-shirt, with a grin she didn’t trust, not one bit. His nostrils flared, and he leaned closer, inhaling visibly. “What are you going to do now, Lisa? Want to go back to bed?” His huge eyes glistened with desire.

Lisa slid her fingers along his smooth tanned cheek. Evidently, his people didn’t grow facial hair. She had never seen him shave. “Why not?” she murmured and kissed him. Was it really happening: this gorgeous creature in her bed? She liked him so much, she ached inside.

He didn’t disappoint her; his lovemaking was all she had dreamed and more. They spent the next hour in bed, and every minute was exhilarating. Her body still tingled with pleasure, when a phone call interrupted her blissful lassitude. 

She saw the caller ID and grabbed the phone. Her mother never called in the middle of the day unless it was an emergency. Her palms turned clammy. “Mom. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing wrong,” a thin voice said into the receiver, a voice it took Lisa a moment to recognize. She hadn’t heard it through the phone for the past year. “It’s me, Marina. I’m better. I ate breakfast, three pancakes, and I’m hungry again. I want to go outside, but mom wouldn’t let me. Said my immune system is still weak. Could you come, Lis? I’m bored.”

“Marina. Oh, god! I’m so glad. Yes, I can come. Of course. Give me an hour. Love you, love you, sweetie. Oh, god!” She disconnected and turned to Petrel. She wanted to cry. She wanted to dance. She settled on giving him the best kiss of her life before scrambling out of bed, dodging his grabbing hands. “I have to go there. She is better, Petrel. Gosh, she is better. Thanks to you.” 

He regarded her with a solemn expression. “Could I see her?”

Lisa stilled. “Petrel, she doesn’t know. Mom doesn’t know. Nobody knows. I think it is better that you don’t see her.”

“Why? How are you going to explain her miraculous recovery?”

“I’m not going to explain anything to anyone. The doctors will do the explaining. Nobody should know about you.”

“Why? There are other sick children, aren’t there, and it didn’t cost me much.”

“Petrel, no!” Still naked and flashed from their coupling, Lisa plopped down on the bed beside his nude body. Her elation at Marina’s news shrunk like a deflated balloon, replaced by limp dread. For him. All his enormous fighting abilities wouldn’t be enough to extricate him from this new horror, if he let this slip out. 

“Could you imagine what would happen to you and every other elf on Earth, if anyone finds out? You would all be hunted down, captured, and put behind very thick walls with very big locks. They would bleed you all for the entire length of your immortal lives. But it would be a finite resource anyway, very limited. How many elves are there—a couple dozen maybe? Do you know who would get your blood? Not sick children but sick old rich people. No!” 

She clenched her good hand into a fist and slammed it at his muscled chest in frustration. It felt like hitting a stone wall. “Don’t you dare to blab, you stupid hunk! I won’t be responsible for all your people being incarcerated, and that’s exactly what will happen, if you talk. You will be guinea pigs for some government agency forever. Keep your mouth shut!” She hit him again. She was yelling by now, her heart hammering in terror. “Don’t tell anyone!”

“Okay. I won’t,” he said quietly. “Don’t fret, Lisa.” He captured her fist and kissed her knuckles. “Go visit your sister.”

She calmed down a little but eyed him with suspicion as she rummaged in her wardrobe. She still breathed too fast. “Don’t go anywhere today, okay? Watch TV. Play on the computer. You remember how, right? I showed you. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“Don’t you think I should move to a hotel?”

Lisa whirled. “Why? You’re safe here.”

“I can’t eat your food forever. It will take a while until we build that plane.”

“You could always share the cost. Like a real boyfriend. Oops!” Horrified at her shameless extortion, she clamped a hand to her mouth. He had saved her life, and James’s life, and probably Marina’s life, and now she was asking for his money. “Uhm, I mean...” Her ears grew hot.

He bounded out of bed and enveloped her in a hug. “I’d like that,” he murmured into her ear and bit her earlobe. His tongue flicked across her skin, making her shiver. “A real boyfriend. Yes! I’d like that a lot. Go see your sister and then come back to me. I’ll be here. If I’m a boyfriend then what are you?”

“A girlfriend,” Lisa said. “For an elf.” Marveling at her own words, she ducked out of his embrace, got dressed quickly, grabbed her purse, and flew out the door. It’s been only five days since Petrel had come into her life, but so much had happened. She couldn’t wait for day six. And all the other days. A girlfriend for an elf. She liked that a lot too.


End file.
